Agricultural Marketing: Concepts and definitions of market, marketing, agricultural marketing

Market structure, marketing mix and market segmentation, classification and characteristics of agricultural markets

Demand, supply and producer’s surplus of agri commodities: nature and determinants of demand and supply of farm products

Producer’s surplus- meaning and its types, marketable and marketed surplus, factors affecting marketable surplus of agri commodities

Pricing and promotion strategies: pricing considerations and approaches-cost based and competition-based pricing; market promotion — advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity — meaning, merits and demerits

Marketing process and functions: Marketing __ process concentration, dispersion and equalization; exchange functions — buying and selling;

Physical functions-storage, transport and processing; facilitating functions~ packaging, branding, grading, quality control and labeling (Agmark)

Market functionaries and marketing channels: Types and importance of agencies involved in agricultural marketing; meaning and definition of marketing channel; number of channel levels; marketing channels for different farm products

Integration, efficiency, costs and price spread: Meaning, definition and types of market integration

Marketing efficiency; marketing costs, margins and price spread; factors affecting cost of marketing

Role of Govt. in agricultural marketing: Public sector institutions- CWC, SWC, FCI, CACP, DMI, APMC ~ their objectives and 112, functions; cooperative marketing in India

Risk in marketing: Types of risk in marketing, Speculation and hedging; an overview of futures trading

Agricultural prices and policy: Meaning and functions of price: administered prices; need for innovations in agricultural price policy

Trade: Concept of International Trade and its need, theories of absolute and comparative advantage

Present status and prospects of international trade in agri- commodities

WTO; Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and its implications on Indian agriculture, IPR

Role of private sector in Agricultural Marketing

Plotting and study of demand and supply curves

Calculation of elasticities

Relationship between market arrivals and prices of selected commodities

Computation of marketable and marketed surplus of important commodities

Study of price behaviour over time for some selected commodities

Construction of index numbers

Visit to a local market and identify various marketing functions performed by different agencies, identification of marketing channels for selected commodity, collection of data regarding marketing costs, margins and price spread and presentation of report in the class

Visit to market institutions-NAFED, SWC, CWC, cooperative marketing society, ete. to study their organization and functioning

Application of principles of comparative advantage of international trade